Read Online I Am Rembrandt's Daughter by Lynn Cullen - Free Book Online
Authors: Lynn Cullen
Ads: Link
trying to draw his attention away from Vader, who has become very secretive ever since Carel rejected Vader’s painting several days ago. He does not even allow his dear rump-kissing Neel into his studio. When Vader leaves, he throws a drape over the canvas he is working on. If he’s in, he makes me set his tray outside his room when I bring him his meals. The old fox is up to something. I only hope he does not lose his last remaining student while he is at it. Neel is loyal, but even rump kissers have only so much patience.
“What you call ‘twisting,’ “Neel says, “we painters call contrapposto .” He sits back on his stool.
“I know what contrapposto is,” I say, not willing to be outshone by a mere apprentice. Just because I have not been encouraged to paint by my vader does not mean I know nothing about it. “Leonardo da Vinci used it in all his works. He thought that arranging his figures on a curving axis added life to his compositions.”
As a child, I would sneak upstairs when Moeder was sleeping and Vader was away to look at a certain drawing on the wall of a woman and her little son holding a lamb—a sketch, I found out later, Vader had made from a copy of a da Vinci painting he had seen. In just a few strokes of his pen, Vader had captured the woman’s amused adoration for her child as she reached out to him. How I had envied that child. If only Vader would reach out to me that way.
No matter now. I push open the window a crack and cold air rushes in, fluttering my cap strings. I close it quickly, then with a sigh, look longingly at my bed, where behind the pulled curtains my new book awaits. Yesterday I had been able to make good use of a trip to the apothecary for linseed oil for Vader by stopping at the bookseller’s shop to exchange my old book. Now, if only I could just sneak off to read.
“Your vader used contrapposto most intriguingly, I think, in his last Bathsheba ,” Neel is saying. He glances at me as if he has said too much. “In many other paintings, too,” he adds quickly.
“I don’t remember him doing a Bathsheba.” I think of the story in the Bible of the woman who must choose between becoming the lover of rich King David and staying faithful to her lowly soldier husband who is never at home. It seems such an obvious outcome: go with the king.
I do not know the painting he speaks of, but I also do not care. “Vader’s work is not of interest to me.”
Neel crosses his arms and smiles gently as if he does not believe me.
His calmness provokes me. “It would be different if he painted in a more popular style,” I say with heat. “He can, too, when he wants.”
I point to a picture on the wall of Titus’s mother, Saskia, crowned with flowers and holding a flower wand. The surfaces in the painting are perfectly smooth, and the colors clear and bright. “Vader could sell that one, just like that.” I snap my fingers. “But would he ever dream of parting with his precious Saskia?”
“You cannot blame your vader for not wanting to sell a painting of his wife, Cornelia.”
“Especially not of dearest Saskia. Let us all bow down and worship her.” Why am I such a bitter old lemon when Neel is about? Why doesn’t he just tell me to seal my vicious lips?
He gets up from his stool and calmly squeezes some red paint from a tied-up pig bladder onto his palette. “Are there not plenty of paintings around here with your mother as a model as well?”
“Yes. Dark, globby, frightening ones.”
He waits, his long face calm with patience. If he would only say something, I would shut my hateful mouth. But no, he just stares at me with those maddeningly sympathetic eyes.
“You have seen that one in the entranceway of my moeder wading in the river in but a shift. It is pulled up past her knees! At least the prostitutes in the park across the street are smart enough to collect a few guilders before baring their legs.” I look for him to flinch.
Unruffled, he mixes
“What you call ‘twisting,’ “Neel says, “we painters call contrapposto .” He sits back on his stool.
“I know what contrapposto is,” I say, not willing to be outshone by a mere apprentice. Just because I have not been encouraged to paint by my vader does not mean I know nothing about it. “Leonardo da Vinci used it in all his works. He thought that arranging his figures on a curving axis added life to his compositions.”
As a child, I would sneak upstairs when Moeder was sleeping and Vader was away to look at a certain drawing on the wall of a woman and her little son holding a lamb—a sketch, I found out later, Vader had made from a copy of a da Vinci painting he had seen. In just a few strokes of his pen, Vader had captured the woman’s amused adoration for her child as she reached out to him. How I had envied that child. If only Vader would reach out to me that way.
No matter now. I push open the window a crack and cold air rushes in, fluttering my cap strings. I close it quickly, then with a sigh, look longingly at my bed, where behind the pulled curtains my new book awaits. Yesterday I had been able to make good use of a trip to the apothecary for linseed oil for Vader by stopping at the bookseller’s shop to exchange my old book. Now, if only I could just sneak off to read.
“Your vader used contrapposto most intriguingly, I think, in his last Bathsheba ,” Neel is saying. He glances at me as if he has said too much. “In many other paintings, too,” he adds quickly.
“I don’t remember him doing a Bathsheba.” I think of the story in the Bible of the woman who must choose between becoming the lover of rich King David and staying faithful to her lowly soldier husband who is never at home. It seems such an obvious outcome: go with the king.
I do not know the painting he speaks of, but I also do not care. “Vader’s work is not of interest to me.”
Neel crosses his arms and smiles gently as if he does not believe me.
His calmness provokes me. “It would be different if he painted in a more popular style,” I say with heat. “He can, too, when he wants.”
I point to a picture on the wall of Titus’s mother, Saskia, crowned with flowers and holding a flower wand. The surfaces in the painting are perfectly smooth, and the colors clear and bright. “Vader could sell that one, just like that.” I snap my fingers. “But would he ever dream of parting with his precious Saskia?”
“You cannot blame your vader for not wanting to sell a painting of his wife, Cornelia.”
“Especially not of dearest Saskia. Let us all bow down and worship her.” Why am I such a bitter old lemon when Neel is about? Why doesn’t he just tell me to seal my vicious lips?
He gets up from his stool and calmly squeezes some red paint from a tied-up pig bladder onto his palette. “Are there not plenty of paintings around here with your mother as a model as well?”
“Yes. Dark, globby, frightening ones.”
He waits, his long face calm with patience. If he would only say something, I would shut my hateful mouth. But no, he just stares at me with those maddeningly sympathetic eyes.
“You have seen that one in the entranceway of my moeder wading in the river in but a shift. It is pulled up past her knees! At least the prostitutes in the park across the street are smart enough to collect a few guilders before baring their legs.” I look for him to flinch.
Unruffled, he mixes
Similar Books
